Letter: Armed students increase danger

Armed students increase danger

Posted: December 19, 2011 - 1:07am

Armed students increase danger

My condolences go to those affected at Virginia Tech, and my concerns as a student lead me to the question: Should concealed weapons be allowed at Texas Tech? No one really knows the answer. If someone with good aim could prevent a murder, why wouldn’t you let him bring a gun on campus?

But let’s do a thought experiment in which every single student has a concealed handgun (and is willing to use it), and a shooting has just occurred. Once the attacker fires the first round, two students might shoot in the attacker’s direction to protect the bystanders. Confusion then instills, and the two shots of protection result in four shots being fired by the bystanders at the protectors. Then those four bullets initiate eight more. Then those eight initiate another 16, and so on and so forth.

It’s called exponential growth. Bullets fired = 2^x, where x equals the number of individuals with guns. Lets say 100 people are in the area. 2^100 is something like 126,750,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376 — quite a few bullets, if you ask me.

However that’s too extreme. My real fear is that someone’s ’81 Buick is going to backfire, which sounds a lot like gunfire. And maybe this happens the day after a big win, so I’m on campus doing Guns Up, like every good Raider should. If the car sounds like a gunshot, and my hand looks like a gun, I might get killed, all in the name of protection.

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The U.S. Dept of Education, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service recently released an extensive research report (“Campus Attacks – Targeted Violence Affecting Institutions of Higher Learning”) that indicated the incidents of college campus violence had drastically increased in the past 20 years.

77.28 / 4, 276 = 1.8% chance of being around a student who is carrying concealed. Oh wow, that is so scary and so dangerous.

Based on your unsubstantiated fear, we should see thousands, uh no, hundreds, uh no, even tens of police reports showing you college students are identifying and assisting police in catching people who are carrying concealed today?

Nope, you people can’t even see the criminals carrying concealed today, yet you are more afraid of law abiding citizens than criminals.

Speaks volumes of your mental immaturity.

Lets review the actual risk of comparing someone safe, like a doctor to those who carry concealed.

BATF Max 8 million CPL's US, approximately 186 million age 21 or older or 4.3% of the people licensed for CPL.
Possible deaths from CPL holders in 3 year time span from Violence Policy Center report last year, 137 or 45 per year equals .00000562 per concealed license holder. You can also review Florida's data on CCW at http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html it says the same thing.
JAMA http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/286/4/415 700,000 doctors in US kill 44,000 to 98,000 by medical malpractice every year or .14 per physician.
Physician is .065 or .14 /.00000562 = 12,000 to 25,000 times more likely to harm you than a CPL holder.
So where is the risk from concealed carry holders and why aren't you antis crying to ban doctors?

So much for your more likely ka ka!

Lets review the following 10 mass shootings in gun free zones, and note what the body counts were where resistance occurred versus no resistance.

December 17, 1991 Shoney’s Family Restaurant, Anniston, AL: 3 gunmen, 20 hostages, one ARMED customer (Thomas Glenn Terry). Police finally arrived to find one dead robber, one wounded robber and the third had fled when the shooting started. NO INJURED INNOCENTS.
October 1, 1997, Pearl High School: 1 gunman, 2 murdered, 7 injured: Stopped by ARMED vice principal.
January 16, 2002, Virginia Appalachian School of Law: 1 gunman, 3 murdered, 3 injured. Killer was stopped when confronted by two ARMED students.
Dec 9 2007, Colorado Springs, New Life Church, 1 gunman 2 murdered, 3 injured, gunman stopped when armed woman shoots gunman, who then turns gun on self and commits suicide, while 100 other church members are in church.
May 4th, College Station Georgia 2 gunman, 10 victims, 1 dead gunman, 1 victim wounded. The 2 thugs robbing a party begin discussing if they have enough bullets to do the job. One man retrieves his firearm, kills one thug, chases the other off.

Where murderers encountered ARMED resistance 5 incidents

murdered: 7
Where murderers encountered ARMED resistance; injured: 14

Wow, where no resistance occurred 9 plus times higher body count.

Yep, a higher body count is morally superior to a lower body count based on Luke's unsubstantiated beliefs.

Based on these actual incidents, actual government facts and data, your what if fantasy ka ka has as much validity as you saying you can smell a [filtered word] 5 miles upwind in a category 5 hurricane, just is not possible. Get a clue!

I would like for Luke to tell me how many of these terrorist have attacked where they knew there could be the possibility of encountering any armed resistance. All have occurred where they knew that people would not be armed. The police can only respond after the incident has occurred and the shooter may have taken several lives by the time they arrive. I would rather have the opportunity to protect myself if I were ever in this situation. Richard Hopson

"your what if fantasies are only recognized as real by those whose brains are addled by guzzled by the gallons overdoses of Obummer progressive prozac/lsd laced koolaide."

Was that really necessary? That seems to be the norm from folks like yourself, always hollering koolaide and such. Many of those folks from back in the 60's are Republicans today. Grow up, show some maturity.

Laws exist that prohibit guns in many building on campus. How will a university policy trump a federal law? I can't wait until some 'authorized' gun toter shoots someone, then the Feds withdraw millions in funding.... how loud will the squawking be?

i am not sure what math classes you took but you obviously failed to pay attention to what instructor was offering or you had one of the NEW MATH instructors. Your calculations are so far off the mark as to be laughter inspiring. And to think, you may actually go to the polls to vote!
Suggestion: Take your letter to the head of the math department and let him show you your errors.
1dog

Steve, your own statement admits that no 'authorized gun-toter' has yet provided evidence to support your paranoia. Not one.

And, one would be the exception, not the rule.

Can't you guys come up with something that a) is supported by evidence and logic or b) would achieve your ostensible goal without running afoul of rights that you cannot under any circumstances abridge?

Just-a-thought - Yes, it was. It always is. There can be no compromise with those who espouse the unconstitutional idiocy that would deny us our right to self-defense - bludgeoning is the most appropriate response.

>> Lets say 100 people are in the area. 2^100 is something like 126,750,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376 — quite a few bullets, if you ask me. <<

Except that 2^100 is completely irrelevant. But suppose not. Suppose Luke has a clue about the application of mathematics to the situation. Then each of the 100 people would have to be carrying 1,267,506,002,282,294,014,967,032,053 bullets - which is on the order of 1% of the entire mass of the earth. Reductio ad absurdum: Luke's reasoning is clearly false. (I hope he's not majoring in mathematics --- or common sense.)

From a more practical standpoint, the scenario he described simply doesn't happen. Firearms are used more than 2 million times a year in lawful self-defense, but 98% of the time, the gun is never even fired. Two cases that immediately leap to mind involved shootings on school campuses followed by apprehensions by armed citizens wherein the armed citizens did not fire a single shot (Appalachia Law and Pearl Mississippi).

Luke expresses concern for people shooting the wrong target - yet armed civilians are SIX TIMES LESS LIKELY to shoot the wrong person at the scene of a crime than are police.

Luke also overlooks the fact that he's made safer because other people are carrying. The next time some big ape considers knocking the crap out of little old spindly-legs Luke, the ape might think, "What if he's armed?" That could save Luke's life. Not that he'd ever say "Thank you."

.. the dictionairy that defines the word "those that believe" as to infer every single person in the group? Good luck finding that dictionary!

So what exactly is your problem other than your not too good on english comprehension?

Or are you actually agreeing with the childish and unsusbtantiated opine of Lukes in which case, my earlier assertion does apply!

These truths are self evident..

If Luke responds, he becomes incensed with the sarcastic bombast and actually doesn't know the facts, very rare, almost as rare as there actually being a Unicorn!

If Luke was paid to print such rubbish he wont respond in any fashion, which covers the vast majority of anti gun zealotry and propaganda.

Luke really is that stupid and keeps repeating his insane opine only based on emotions and with no facts other than Obummer type math and never, ever has any ability to refute all that available government data proving gun control is an utter failure!

if Luke responds in a exorcist, head spinning spewing pea soup rage, it just proves who the insane violent ones really are.

Last but not least, he shuts up, quits blogging his irrelevant and unsubstantiated opine in public and quits making a fool of himself.

We dont care which of these results occurs, they all work to our advantage and that must be hell for you eh?

... tolerance for idiots whose irrelevant opinion was posted in a public forum and therefore open to any response said idiotic ramblings incur renders your beliefs and opinions moot.

Not to mention you utterly fail to refute the data or position we identified, much less said government data identified supporting the position. Hence all you can do is lamely attempt and misdirect to a feigned and pathetic idignation at getting called on the carpet.

Grow up little man, we dont give a crap what you believe, only what you can prove, which in keeping with the author of this pathetic article, is nothing.